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GroundTruth Blog

On Wednesday, Scott Pruitt signed his first official action as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The New York Times headline captures it well: "EPA Chief, Rejecting Agency's Science, Chooses Not to Ban Insecticide." Well, then.
Let's break this down. First, the insecticide in question is chlorpyrifos, a widely used neurotoxic chemical that study after study has shown is harming the development of children's brains. One study even used MRI technology to link chlorpyrifos exposure to changes in brain architecture. And when mothers are exposed during pregnancy, their... Read More

California officials are close to finalizing new policies that could result in some of the strongest rules on pesticide use near schools. But will they fall short? Until April 4, California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) is accepting public comment on a proposal to limit the use of the most hazardous pesticides near schools — but thanks to loopholes, this proposal doesn't offer nearly enough protection for schoolkids.
Picture gaseous fumigations, air blasters and aerial applications.
These are the methods that time and time again lead to pesticide drift in the air that can... Read More

Thanks to everyone who joined us in celebrating Farmworker Awareness Week March 24-31, 2017. Read on for ways to honor the important contributions farmworkers make to our communities, and how to raise awareness about farmworker health, labor conditions and immigration reform throughout the year.
This Farmworker Awareness Week, please join me in celebrating the two million men and women who toil throughout the year, coast to coast in U.S. agricultural fields bringing a cornucopia to tables in this country and around the world.
There's a lot that needs doing to better recognize and support... Read More

Farmers vs. environmentalists. It’s a common narrative that rears its head again and again in news, opinion and analysis, most recently in this piece by Dan Charles for National Public Radio (NPR). The title reads, "Farmers Fight Environmental Regulations." The imposed conflict is right there in the title.
As a small farmer from Iowa, I’m standing up alongside my fellow food-growers, livestock-raisers and land-tenders to challenge this narrative and say, no, not all farmers.
Who pollutes & who profits?
Farmers are stewards of the land. We are committed to the health and well-being... Read More

Last week, we learned that an official at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) helped Monsanto block additional review of glyphosate’s link to cancer. News also broke that Monsanto employees helped ghostwrite scientific papers related to the herbicide’s impact on human health.
How do we know this? A federal judge in San Francisco unsealed documents revealing that Jess Rowland — the EPA official charged with evaluating the cancer risk of glyphosate exposure — was looking out for Monsanto’s interests instead of closely evaluating the herbicide’s health impacts.
We’re not... Read More

Are pesticides needed to feed the world? Not so much, according to a recent report by Dr. Hilal Elver, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
Elver’s report provides yet more evidence debunking the “we feed the world” narrative that the pesticide/biotech industry giants have been aggressively promoting for decades. The reality, as Elver notes, is quite different:
Reliance on hazardous pesticides is a short-term solution that undermines the rights to adequate food and health for present and future generations.
PAN International supports this report fully. All five PAN regional... Read More

Right now, the very existence of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is being challenged by the people who are in charge of it, and by legislators who see it as a job-killing nuisance. Instead of tearing it down, let's focus on its mission — protecting our health and the natural environment — and make sure that it's helping those who need it most.
The founding purpose
In 1970, various federal anti-pollution efforts were merged to become the EPA in response to President Nixon's pledge "to repair the damage already done, and to establish new criteria to guide us in the future... Read More

The Department of Pesticide Regulation director and his top advisor endured a grilling last week at a packed hearing convened by the California Senate Committee on Environmental Quality to consider the new schools regs.
Testimony from the panel of experts made clear that the real harm endured by farmworker communities is not from acute poisoning incidents but from chronic exposure – and these regulations as drafted don't address that problem.
DPR's response? Who cares.
DPR's special advisor Randy Segawa described the regulations this way: "They're not designed to reduce... Read More